Serhiy Dupliy

One can say that Serhiy Dupliy rushed into the Ukrainian art scene like a storm. Some peo­ple became alarmed but most were charmed and really impressed by his genuine artistic talent, his youthful ingenuity and a clear view of nature.

The path to his art was not smooth and simple. The future artist became a sports enthusiast and for his life career enrolled at the Institute of Physical Education in Kyiv, graduated in 1980 and returned to his native village of Sydorivka in Cherkassy region as a teacher of Physical Education; however, after the second year at the Institute, Serhiy realized that his suppressed passion for painting will not go away.

While a student he visited various museums and art exhibitions. Unforgettable impressions were left by masters like K.Korovin, F.Krychevsky, T.Yablonska, S.Shyshko. In those student days, Serhiy painted a lot, and his art teacher was Mother Nature.

Serhiy constantly felt a need for training and improvement. With still unrealized yearning for art, he studied at exhibitions, visiting museums in Moscow and in St.-Petersburg (the Hermitage), where he has discovered for himself the art of impressionists. Being struck by their wealth of color, freshness, painting manner, he strove to acquire professional skills. Impressionists have also con­vinced him, that the best school for an artist is working directly in the open air. Therefore, he shift­ed from a darkish tonality to light painting, to spon­taneous, dynamic manner by means of fine strokes of paintbrush, wide impressive spots, not dimmed by thoughtless mixing of several paints, keeping cleanliness of their initial vibrations. Nature revealed to him a cleanliness of iridescent colors and he has not betrayed his dialogue with nature until the present.

Although formation of Dupliy as an artist was rather impetuous — something leaned back, and something, on the contrary, inspired and pro­grammed his reference to creativity of other artists congenial by creative direction and manner, like I.Grabar, M.Sarjan, M.Burachek — inconsistent among themselves, but inspired and passionate. Particularly, Dupliy was fascinated by M.Hlushchenko's internal simplicity and boldness of color combinations; his world seemed to be sunlight-ed and surprisingly harmonious. He was the one to reveal to Serhiy a secret of color harmony, as well as the unique art culture of the French school.

Undoubtedly, all these bright impressions brought up Dupliy's taste and induced him to cre­ative work. However, Serhiy's special gratitude I reserved for Fedir Zaharov who has prompted him to gain professional experience, and, significantly, facilitated self-knowledge of his creative personality and energetic character. Dupliy is capable of great endurance — he has managed to paint from life from early morning till late at night for a nine-year period, depicting his native land of Cherkassy, or to isolate himself for years and paint still-lifes to mas­ter artistic skills. Thus, the composition and figure was mastered, the easy manner of performance was developed and, eventually, he achieved the most valuable color harmony. However, virtuosity of a whimsical manner sometimes becomes a self-suffi­cient goal for the artist, covering by its expression and not always justified color arrangement, such qualities, as moderation and refinement of the gen­eral composition, necessary for completeness of image and for expression of lofty art style.

It is quite clear, that in time Serhiy Dupliy has gained a freedom of expression, painting sponta­neously and passionately, as if inspired by improvisa­tion. However, behind this there is a great and mighty nature, which remains his universal teacher — a pledge of constant perfection and creative success.